Iacocca's words.

Iacocca's words.



'Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage with this so called president? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of tax cheating clueless leftists trying to steer our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even run a ridiculous cash-for-clunkers program without losing $26 billion of the taxpayers' money, much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'trust me the economy is getting better..'


Better? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned, 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the Democrats out along with Obama!'


You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore.


The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Afghanistan, Iran is completing their nuclear bombs and missiles and nobody seems to know what to do. And the liberal press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of the 'America' my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. The Biggest 'C' is Crisis! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C's of leadership, with crisis being the first.)

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your thumb up your butt and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a mess, so here's where we stand.

We're immersed in a bloody war now with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. But our soldiers are dying daily.

We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the world, and it's getting worse every day!

We've lost the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are going to skyrocket again, and nobody in power has a lucid plan to open drilling to solve the problem. This country has the largest oil reserves in the WORLD, and we cannot drill for it because the politicians have been bought by the flea-hugging environmentalists.

Our schools are in a complete disaster because of the teachers union


Our borders are like sieves and they want to give all illegals amnesty and free healthcare.

The middle class is being squeezed to death every day.

These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point..

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?

We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping the government will make it better for them. Now, that's just crazy.. Deal with life.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, look what Obama did about it!

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or solving theenergy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the Chicago gangsters in Congress. We didn't elect you to turn this country into a losing European Socialist state. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on NBC or CNN news will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope - I believe in America. In my lifetime, I've had the privilege of living through some of America 's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises: The 'Great Depression,' 'World War II,' the 'Korean War,' the 'Kennedy Assassination,' the 'Vietnam War,' the 1970's oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years since 9/11.

Make your own contribution by sending this to everyone you know and care about. It's our country, folks, and it's our future. Our future is at stake!!


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LET'S GET THE MUSLIM ROOKIE OUT OF THE WHITEHOUSE!!!

Living in FEMA Land II

FEMA gives away $85 million of supplies for Katrina victims

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- FEMA gave away about $85 million in household goods meant for Hurricane Katrina victims, a CNN investigation has found.

The material, from basic kitchen goods to sleeping necessities, sat in warehouses for two years before the Federal Emergency Management Agency's giveaway to federal and state agencies this year.

James McIntyre, FEMA's acting press secretary, said that FEMA was spending more than $1 million a year to store the material and that another agency wanted the warehouses torn down, so "we needed to vacate them."

"Upon review of our assets and our need to continue to store them, we determined that they were excess to FEMA's needs; therefore, they are being excessed from FEMA's inventory," McIntyre wrote in an e-mail.

He declined a request for an on-camera interview, telling CNN the giveaway was "not news."
Photos from one of the facilities in Fort Worth, Texas, show pallet after pallet of cots, cleansers, first-aid kits, coffee makers, camp stoves and other items stacked to the ceiling.

FEMA said some of the items were donations from companies after Katrina, but most were purchased in the field as "starter kits" for people living in trailers provided by the agency. And even though the stocks were offered to state agencies after FEMA decided to get rid of them, one of the states that passed was Louisiana.

Martha Kegel, the head of a New Orleans nonprofit agency that helps find homes for those still displaced by the storm, said she was shocked to learn about the existence of the goods and the government giveaway.

"These are exactly the items that we are desperately seeking donations of right now: basic kitchen household supplies," said Kegel, executive director of Unity of Greater New Orleans. "These are the very things that we are seeking right now. FEMA, in fact, refers homeless clients to us to house them. How can we house them if we don't have basic supplies?"

Watch the great FEMA giveaway »
Kegel's group works with FEMA and other local organizations to rehouse victims of Katrina, the 2005 hurricane that flooded New Orleans and killed more than 1,800 people along the Gulf Coast. Community groups say thousands of people are still living in abandoned buildings in the city, though fewer than 100 people remain housed in tents.

Kegel said FEMA was told in regular meetings that Unity was desperate for household supplies and that the group has been forced to beg for donations. But she said FEMA never told Unity and other community groups that it had tens of millions of dollars worth of brand-new items meant for storm victims.

She said she learned of it from CNN, which found that those items never made it to people such as Debra Reed.

"An honest person like me didn't get nothing," said Reed, 54, who recently moved from a tent beneath a New Orleans bridge to a home with the help of Kegel's group. "I'm gonna turn, 'cause I'm gonna cry. I didn't get nothing. I fought to get my money, but they wouldn't give it to me. So I ended up going under the bridge."

FEMA confirmed that it had kept the merchandise in storage for the past two years and then gave it away to cities, schools, fire departments and nonprofit agencies such as food banks. In all, General Services Administration records show, FEMA gave away 121 truckloads of material.

McIntyre said that most of the items given away were not "standard-issue type supplies" that FEMA would have distributed after other disasters. He said that using the GSA, which manages federal property, to get rid of those stockpiles was "standard process."

Asked whether FEMA believed that

Katrina victims no longer needed the items, McIntyre wrote: "If the state did not request the supplies, then FEMA would not know." Watch Kegel describe "the needs are just overwhelming" »

Pallets at the Fort Worth warehouse were piled high with boxes of buckets, boots, cleansers, mops and brooms. There were stacks of tents, lanterns and camp stoves for people still displaced, as well as clothing, bedding, plates and utensils.

Meanwhile, Kegel said, Unity's clients can take only "one fork, one spoon, one knife; they can only take one plate. We don't have enough to go around."

But FEMA said the items were no longer needed in the stricken region. So it declared them "federal surplus" and gave them away.

Federal agencies such as the Bureau of Prisons, Postal Service and Border Patrol got first dibs on the material when FEMA started giving it away. Other agencies that received items include the National Guard, U.S. Marshals Service, the Air Force and Navy and the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, according to a list the GSA provided to CNN.

These items also were offered to all states -- yet Louisiana, where most of the people displaced by the storm live, passed on taking any of them.

John Medica, director of the Louisiana Federal Property Assistance Agency in Baton Rouge, said he was unaware that Katrina victims still had a need for the household supplies.

"We didn't have anybody out there who told us they wanted it," Medica said.
Instead, 16 other states took the free items.

"Louisiana Recovery Authority Director Paul Rainwater is taking the lead on determing where this serious breakdown in communication occured and ... is working to pursue options for the state to still make use of these important supplies," said Michael DiResto of the Division of Administration.
DiResto said Rainwater has already taken up the issue with a FEMA official.

Kegel said she could not understand how Medica could not be aware of the need in the New Orleans area.

She said she had not heard of the agency and was not registered with them, but after CNN's interview, the agency contacted her about registering Unity of Greater New Orleans so it could qualify for available supplies in the future

Ron Paul is interviewed by John Roberts on CNN's American Morning

Benz Speaks!

Recently ( April 28, 2008) , Ron Paul was interviewed by John Roberts on CNN regarding his (Paul's) new book - - The Revolution - A Manifesto and also Paul's continuing campaign for the Presidency. Watch the almost eight minute video posted on YouTube. Click the title to go to YouTube.

Book Description (via Amazon.com)

This Much Is True:

You Have Been Lied To.
The government is expanding.
Taxes are increasing.
More senseless wars are being planned.
Inflation is ballooning.

Our basic freedoms are disappearing.

The Founding Fathers didn't want any of this. In fact, they said so quite clearly in the Constitution of the United States of America. Unfortunately, that beautiful, ingenious, and revolutionary document is being ignored more and more in Washington. If we are to enjoy peace, freedom, and prosperity once again, we absolutely must return to the principles upon which America was founded. But finally, there is hope . . .

In THE REVOLUTION,Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul has exposed the core truths behind everything threatening America, from the real reasons behind the collapse of the dollar and the looming financial crisis, to terrorism and the loss of our precious civil liberties. In this book, Ron Paul provides answers to questions that few even dare to ask.

Despite a media blackout, this septuagenarian physician-turned-congressman sparked a movement that has attracted a legion of young, dedicated, enthusiastic supporters . . . a phenomenon that has amazed veteran political observers and made more than one political rival envious. Candidates across America are already running as "Ron Paul Republicans.""

. About the Author

Ron Paul, a ten-term congressman from Texas, is the leading advocate of freedom in our nation's capital. He has devoted his political career to the defense of individual liberty, sound money, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. Judge Andrew Napolitano calls him "the Thomas Jefferson of our day."

After serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s, Dr. Paul moved to Texas to begin a civilian medical practice, delivering over four thousand babies in his career as an obstetrician. He served in Congress from 1976 to 1984, and again from 1996 to the present. He and Carol Paul, his wife of fifty-one years, have five children, eighteen grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Ron Paul, the New York Post once wrote, is a politician who "cannot be bought by special interests."

"There are few people in public life who, through thick and thin, rain or shine, stick to their principles," added a congressional colleague. "Ron Paul is one of those few."

Ron Paul Survives Lies, Manipulation Of Mass Media

By Mark Anderson

A recent article entitled “A Requiem for Ron Paul,” written by Stacy Cowley for Fortune Small Business magazine online, begins:

“Ron Paul’s Friday announcement that his presidential campaign ‘will soonwind down’ removes from the race a quixotic figure whose doomed pursuit of the White House inspired libertarians and free-market purists, including many business owners who loved his message about a nation free from regulatory fetters.

”Asked by AFP why she wrote that Paul had dropped out when he has not, Miss Cowley replied, “I think we stand by what was written,” while claiming that the article was “not a bias against a particular candidate; it’s just a function of how the media operates.

”When reminded that Paul has not actually pulled out like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney did when they officially quit, she seemed to dodge the matter, while portraying her article as a whole as “a tribute to what he (Paul) was trying to accomplish.” She also told AFP that she put the article together (with two other reporters, just for an average length piece) near deadline, though Miss Cowley said she watched all of Paul’s latest video.

The mainstream media sees Paul as numerically out of the running in terms of delegates. But Paul confirmed he’s still in the race to keep his ideas in the arena (and to be there if McCain falls from grace or if delegates are not bound to McCain in September at the Republican National Convention).

Reporters and editors in the mainstream media want to spin their stories, instead of reporting actual statements and events as they unfold without prejudice. The result is that not enough Americans know about “the other guy” still standing in the GOP field. This deceives the electorate when the nation is in dire straits—and when many who don’t want to vote Democratic also don’t like McCain but generally are not aware there is another choice.

AFP viewed the same video that Miss Cowley and many other mainstream hacks saw, which is Rep. Paul’s latest video statement to supporters posted on ronpaul2008.com. It shows that he has not dropped out of the presidential race. But nearly all media outlets have persistently claimed that he has quit. While Paul does say “victory in the conventional political sense is not available in the presidential race,” he nevertheless clearly remains in the presidential race.

“The campaign for freedom will continue in this new phase—in this we will need financial resources to continue,” he states in a comment that the major media will not touch in its relentless effort to nudge Paul out of the race, much in the way that former Democratic candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) was forced out of the running when he was not asked by network wonks to take part in a major televised debate. He charged then that the media was making his decisions for him, rather than allowing him to decide for himself whether to remain in the running.

A valuable spinoff of the Paul campaign is exposure of the major media for what it is—an untrustworthy propaganda belt that cannot be believed. This manipulative information ministry lately has hung its hat on Paul’s statement in the video that “the presidential campaign will soon wind down.”

However, the next words out of Paul’s mouth were: “But we do still encourage all effort to gain the maximum number of votes and delegates in all the remaining primaries and to continue the caucus process that’s ongoing in other states by loyal volunteers.”

The big media also has latched onto Paul’s words: “We must remember, elections are short-term efforts. Revolutions are long-term projects.”

Many reports have characterized that video comment as signaling a dignified surrender. However, Paul said on CNN’s American Morning show: “If you’re in a campaign for only gaining power, that’s one thing. If you’re in a campaign to influence ideas and the future of the country, the campaign is never over.”

Some supporters say the Paul campaign is slow in setting the record straight when the media lie about his status. Evening news reports on NBC and other national networks report as if Paul doesn’t exist. It’s just the lackluster McCain on one hand, and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the other.

Paul has remained true to his word that as long as his supporters want him to remain in the presidential running, he will do so—even as McCain remains the media hyped “leader” for the GOP but is vulnerable to mounting scandals and revelations about his counterfeit conservatism and his checkered past.

Besides being listed as a member of the infamous Council on Foreign Relations in the CFR’s 2007 report— putting him in close quarters with the ruling-class establishment that pushes for a U.S. empire and a North American Union—McCain has not earned much heartfelt support from Republican-leaning media pundits (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc) and various longtime GOP fixtures such as evangelical leader James Dobson.

But this GOP clique will not even mention Paul as the Reagan-like figure they claim to be longing for. But, as noted in Newsweek, Paul knew Reagan well, admires and practices some of his philosophy (get rid of the Education Department) and won “The Gipper’s” personal support when seeking election to Congress.

Paul did not want to lose the Republican nomination for his Texas congressional seat, since he wants to continue his revolution. He won that hands down versus a determined opponent. And, as AFP has noted, with that victory in his back pocket, his load is lighter and he is able to stay in the presidential running to at least give old-guard Republican voters a constitutional choice.

Republicans, Paul said on CNN, “have a right to vote for someone that stands for traditional Republican principles.”

In his latest video, Paul also reiterated the idea of having a summer march in Washington to amplify his revolution’s ideas and emphasize its enduring presence on the political scene.

“It looks to me like June 21 would be a good day,” he said, adding, however, that other individuals or groups, instead of the Paul campaign, would have to be the march’s main organizers. He attributed this to legal, logistical and practical reasons. If his march happens, AFP will be there.

As for the other media, who knows?

Mark Anderson can be reached via email at truthhound2@yahoo.com.
(Issue # 12, March 24, 2008)

Video message: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk_vVaZxTno